Our Goose is Loose – and we love it! We have had the good fortune of having a number of chefs, restaurants and businesses throughout the US use their culinary talents to showcase the wonderful flavors of our Goose products.

We’d like to take the opportunity to highlight and thank these folks who offer our products to their own customers. Their dishes delight those who already love goose and provide other patrons the opportunity to try goose or goose products for the first time.

Our first featured restaurants come straight from The Big Easy – The Delachaise and its spin-off restaurant, Chais Delachaise.

The Delachaise
This gem of a restaurant is nestled in the heart of New Orleans, and is a wine bar that’s well-known for its interesting interior (a renovated box car), its fantastic wine selection and their Pommes Frites. Pommes Frites are french fries cooked in none other than our Rendered Goose Fat, and are served with a malt vinegar aioli and spicy peanut satay. Among the many amazing attributes their restaurant receives, a common theme on reviews from Facebook, Yelp and TripAdvisor is how much customers LOVE the goose fat fries.

Chais Delachaise
With the success of The Delachaise, owner Evan Hayes decided to keep a good thing going and opened Chais Delachaise. Chais Delachaise is a wine bistro (a “chais” in French is an above-ground wine cellar) with a globally inspired menu, that includes the Pommes Frites, which are served with a spicy ketchup and a malt vinegar herb aioli.

Schiltz Foods employee, Tonya Metz, was fortunate to travel to NOLA this past year and visited The Delachaise. She was able to experience the amazing hospitality of their staff, in addition to the Pommes Frites, among other dishes. She confirmed what all the rave reviews were about during her dining experience – not only the Pommes Frites, but the entire meal was fantastic.

If you’re ever in NOLA, be sure to stop by The Delachaise or Chaise Delachaise (or both!) to try their Pommes Frites made with our Rendered Goose Fat!

Grilling Goose
We all know goose should be your “go-to” holiday meal, but when summer – AKA grilling season- hits, most people gear toward cooking burgers or brats.

This summer, spread your grilling wings (pun intended) and GO GOOSE instead! We partnered with Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts, Chef Tracey Sing, to assist with a recipe using our Boneless Goose Breast. Our Boneless Goose Breast are a versatile product that provides the same rich flavor of goose, but are a smaller cut of meat making it easier to grill.

Although goose breast is the perfect size for grilling, it’s important to prep it properly to tenderize it to keep it moist and flavorful. A few ways to do this are smoking, marinating or brining. This step is important, as it would certainly be a tragedy to purchase a beautiful goose breast only to have it dry out on the grill. For this recipe, we chose brining as our method to ensure our goose turned out delicious – and boy, did it ever!

Cooking Preparation:
– Pour chilled brine mixture into any cookware – we used a 9 x 13 glass baking dish
– Lay goose breasts skin side up in the brine, so brine can easily penetrate the meat
– (Optional step): Use meat injector to inject brine into bottom of each breast, approximately 1 inch apart, until breast is plump (breast will plump up, and return to close to normal size)
– Refrigerate covered for 6 to 24 hours (we brined ours overnight)

Grilling Instructions:
– Remove from refrigerator and grill at Medium-High heat
– Place breasts on bottom grilling rack until they’re seared to your color preference on both sides (please note that goose does have a significant amount of fat, so be aware that grill may flare up)
– Move to top rack, turning occasionally until meat thermometer reads 130° F. We grilled our breasts to Medium-Rare, so if like your meat a little more done, you’ll simply want to grill it a bit longer
– Once breasts are grilled to your desire, remove from grill and let sit for around 10 minutes prior to slicing and serving. As it sits, the breast will continue to cook and the internal temperature of the meat will rise about 8-10 degrees

Voila! These goose breasts are absolutely delicious for a weeknight, or are a wonderful treat for guests at a summer BBQ. Enjoy!

With Mother’s Day recently upon us, it only seemed fitting to have our first blog post highlight the Schiltz family matriarch, Kathryn.

After all, it was Kathryn’s great discovery that started the Schiltz family in the goose business. In June 1944, Kathryn and her sister, were out for a walk and came upon five abandoned Toulouse goose eggs.

She gathered the eggs and brought them home to her husband, Marlin, at their farm in Bancroft, Iowa. Marlin was no stranger to growing livestock, as they were already raising hogs, cattle, chickens, layers and Guinea, in addition to farming 320 acres of corn and oats. Of the goose five eggs, Marlin was able to hatch two goslings and grew them each to 12 pounds, selling them for 12 cents a pound.

Kathryn always had a love for all animals – so much so that you’d often find “wild” animals in the yard who were domesticated like a family dog or cat. The geese and goslings were no different – she could have coined the currently-used term “humanely-raised” with her love of animals.

Kathryn and pet deer “Bambi” on the family farm.

As the business grew throughout the years, Kathryn assisted in a variety of ways. As with many “farm wives,” Kathryn ensured the family and employees were well-fed. She prepared a monster of a meal six days a week for the seven children and six hired men. In addition to your typical “meat and potatoes” meal, she would serve homemade bread and dessert daily. The family and employees also enjoyed the homemade canned items year-round from Kathryn’s elaborate garden she kept up to save money on their groceries.

During the goose hatching season, her expertise was relied upon to sort and wing band the goslings that would be kept for breeder geese – she assisted with this hatch process for nearly 40 years.

Kathryn in the early 90’s helping with the gosling sort. Only a class-act like Kathryn would wear white shoes and dress pants in a goose hatchery! She donned that clothing, as she came to hatch directly from volunteering at the nursing home.

Kathryn also had love for the decorated eggs created from infertile goose eggs, and also became a talent in decorating them herself. She and Marlin were instrumental to the current collection of eggs that is housed in the office of Schiltz Foods in Sisseton, SD.

Kathryn admiring one of the many eggs in the collection.

There aren’t many who could cook a goose and dressing as delicious as Kathryn. Her Goose sandwiches particularly became a family favorite – the crunch of the celery, the zing of mustard – yes, a definite family favorite! Below is a recipe card for Kathryn’s Goose Sandwiches – complete with special notes including a nickname for one of her grandchildren!

Goose Sandwich Recipe for St. Michaelmas Day (Goose Day).

Kathryn passed away in April 2012, and her nicknames she gave to her grandchildren and contagious laughter continue to be missed.

We look forward to sharing our Blog with you – from our history, to recipes and all things goose!